Back in the day, the players would have met in the captain's Partykeller – the regulation, wood-panelled basement lounge of 80s West German suburban villas designed to double up as nuclear bunkers in case the Russians decided to pay a visit. To the uplifting sounds of Jennifer Rush or Opus, the team members would have drunk themselves stupid and promised each other that things would be very different in the next game.

Wolfsburg's captain, Josué, it's safe to assume, doesn't have a Partykeller at his disposal, unfortunately – the devout, diminutive Brazilian has probably turned the spare room into a makeshift church. Since the German equivalent of Detroit offers little else apart from a Ritz-Carlton hotel and the car factory by way of a meeting place, the Wolfsburg players decided to convene in the Volkswagen Arena's dressing room for a clandestine get together a few days before Sunday's vital match against Cologne.

The fact that senior figures like Edin Dzeko, Diego Benaglio, Christian Gentner and Zvejzdan Misimovic decided to discuss the champions' dramatic loss of form in such a frank fashion boded well for the team, the fact that half of squad wasn't aware of the meeting perhaps less so. In the end, they all played a little better than a week before – a 3-1 defeat away to Stuttgart – but still bad enough to lose 3-2 against Zvonimir Soldo's relegation battlers.

Even without any fit strikers – Milivoje Novakovic and Lukas Podolski were both unavailable – the visitors couldn't help but score three against a Wolves defence that offered marginally more resistance than a floored Nuttenwolf holding up four legs in the air.

The result leaves Wolfsburg 10th in the league with 24 points from 19 games and the second worst goals against tally – 38, a performance which the Wolfsburger Allgemeine Zeitung rightly points out is "not enough for the club's ambition and not enough for the manager". Armin Veh, who had spoken of a "must-win match" beforehand, has now become the eighth Bundesliga managerial casualty of the season. General manager Dieter Hoeness's first big task since taking office 10 days ago will be to negotiate a settlement and find a suitable replacement. The former Hertha supremo didn't even bother with a vote of confidence on Sunday. "Obviously one starts to wonder after seven games without a win," he said. "I won't say anything [in support of Veh] that I might have to take back later."

The manager left without comment and decided to miss this week's meeting of league managers. Shouts of "Armin raus!" rather than "Veh raus!" in the stadium suggest that the problem here is nothing personal – Veh, affable and straightforward, was simply not able to coach a team that suffers from a "Hangover"-sized, ahem, hangover. There's a suspicion that the best players are simply lacking motivation – they are only still at Wolfsburg because the club made them offers they couldn't refuse. Last year's top-goalscorer Grafite, for example, stumbles around the pitch, lazy and disinterested.

Wolfsburgs's fall from grace seems to confirm a suspicion from Veh's VfB Stuttgart days: the 48-year-old is the perfect manager for a side on a good run but neither stringent nor hard working enough to succeed in more difficult circumstances. It soon became apparent that the wealth of power (he started as manager, general manager and CEO) he inherited from Felix Magath were too much for him. "Veh, unlike Magath, doesn't sit in his office beyond midnight," wrote Süddeutsche Zeitung when Wolfsburg appointed Hoeness. "He can't. He needs to take the dog out, for starters."

The younger brother of the Bayern president arrived just in time to stick the knife in. The club's backers have promised more millions to shore up the leaky back-line – Schalke's Rafinha is close to a move – but the name of the reported favourite to succeed Veh doesn't exactly inspire confidence: the former Real Madrid coach Bernd Schuster is allegedly the preferred candidate of a VW board member. Those traditionalists who feared the emergence of a new Bundesliga super-power in Lower Saxony can probably soon sleep a little more soundly.

Talking points

• Ruud van Nistelrooy's surprise transfer to Hamburg is exciting the whole league. The 33-year-old has forsaken quite a bit of money and the chance to slum it in London's East End to prove his World Cup worthiness alongside compatriots Joris Mathijsen and Eljero Elia. He'll pick up €6m until summer 2011 though. "We've had very good talks with him and found that he's still got a burning desire," said the HSV manager, Bruno Labbadia, after his team's 1-0 defeat away to Dortmund. "My ambitions match those of Hamburg," said the former Real Madrid striker, who will need some time to get over a hamstring injury. Defender Jérôme Boateng is especially happy. "He was always the first striker I picked on the computer," he said. Let's be sensible and hold those stupid horse jokes for now; we'll need to see if there's some life left in the old nag first.

• Second-placed Bayern Munich were so utterly dominant, they could and should have reached double-figures away to Werder Bremen on Saturday. The home side inexplicably defended as if Afroman rather than Thomas Schaaf was in charge of tactics: any higher up the pitch, and they would have collectively crashed into the advertising board behind the Bayern goal. Bremen were so poor that Arjen "man in tights" Robben discovered a charitable streak worthy of his Sherwood Forest namesake and squandered a million chances. The Grün-Weissen looked to have punished the wasteful Reds with their second successful attack in 90 minutes, but Hugo Almeida's 2-2 equaliser in the 75th minute didn't bring lasting relief. A mis-hit free-kick from Robben crashed into Tim Wiese's goal two minutes later to decide the most-one sided 3-2 win you'll ever see. The Dutchman then raced towards Louis van Gaal, whose evasive manoeuvre saw him crashing to the floor in stages. The Bayern dressing room were still in stitches hours later.

• Leverkusen lost their lead at the top of the table for 24 hours but then struck back with an effortless 3-0 win away to Hoffenheim. Toni Kroos was again the outstanding performer with one goal and two assists. The 20-year-old was rewarded with a call-up by Joachim Löw, who is conducting a much-maligned fitness test with the national team this week. "He's very mature for his age," Löw said. The 49-year-old's decision to freeze out Torsten Frings was proved correct on Saturday, incidentally. "Frings played as if Löw's pension award for officially recognised ex-internationals had seen him age to the tune of many years overnight," wrote Süddeutsche.